The following is from Buy This, Not That by Sam Dogen with permission from Portfolio, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2022 by Kansei Incorporated.

Please note that I've edited this passage slightly to (a) be more readable on the web and (b) fit within the publisher's word-count limitations. Ready? Let's dive in!

Life is rarely black-and-white, yet we need to make definitive choices all the time.<

Back during the dotcom collapse of 2000, I was losing money in the stock market like a champ. I was a second-year financial analyst who had a serious case of confusing brains with a bull market. When I turned to my VP and told him I was still bullish about the stock market, he almost slapped me upside the head. "We're in a bear market, son. Get used to it and stop dreaming!"

After losing about 30 percent in my after-tax portfolio, my dreams of stock market riches finally faded. I cried "uncle" and moved my money into more conservative investments. The funny part was that my 401k was actually up in 2000 and in 2001 because I had allocated 50 percent of my assets into a hedge fund called Andor Capital Management that went short the market.

Normally, only accredited investors -- those who earn $200,000 a year or more or who have a net worth of over $1 million or more (excluding their primary residence) -- can invest in hedge funds. But my firm had a partnership with Andor that gave us peons access to invest as well.

I was in the 6th grade when I first laid eyes on her. She was a 1989 BMW 635i Coupe that did donuts in the school's parking lot after class thanks to an obnoxious, rich 11th-grader who got the car as a birthday present. I was immediately smitten and promised myself one day I'd be able to buy such a car too.

The new 6 series BMW came out in 2005 and all the memories came rushing back. What cost only $35,000 then now cost $75,000 thanks to inflation and an infinite amount of new features. I don't know about you, but $75,000 is a big chunk of change and is way beyond my 1/10th rule for car-buying I say everyone must follow.

I figured instead of spending $75,000, why not go back in time and actually buy that 1989 635i Coupe! My brilliant idea led me to Craigslist where I found my true dream car listed in "fantastic condition with only 160,000 miles"! That's only 8,000 miles a year I rationalized, and off I went to see the seller 45 minutes away.

If you want to know how to get the best deal possible, learn this simple acronym: BATNA. "BATNA" stands for "Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement." Often times the bulk of money made or lost is in the initial agreement. Negotiating a real estate sale, buying a car, and fighting for a raise or a promotion all require the proper usage of BATNA to get you the highest return.

The Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement is broken down as follows:

* What is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement if you do not purchase or sell?

When I asked the community whether we have the duty to live up to our potential, many of you balked at the notion of living up to anybody else's standards but your own. I read every single comment, and the general feeling is that society has unrealistic expectations of what one should do or should be. I agree with the general feedback. Screw society. Do what you want to do and don't let anybody stop you.

The only caveat I see with not living up to your potential is the feeling of regret. I never want to fail due to a lack of effort, and that's exactly what I did when I didn't try out for high school football. I can fail because I'm too stupid, the competition is too good or there was some uncontrollable, exogenous variable that negatively affected my chances. But when I know I'm not doing everything possible to succeed, then regret inevitably creeps in. You don't want to go through life wondering what could have been if you had tried just a little bit harder.

In this post, I'd like to discuss the joys of being average. Since college, I consistently tried to massacre my mind and body by studying and working like no other. In college, it was imperative to graduate at least magna cum laude to give myself the best chance at getting a good job. When I landed my first job, there was no question of getting in by 5:30 a.m. and leaving after 7:30 p.m. every day for the first two years because I knew nothing -- and people who know nothing are easily disposable.

So you missed out on Twitter's meteoric first-day rise because the stock gapped up to $45 from the initial public offering price of $26 and you couldn't get in. With a market capitalization of ~$25 billion everybody is screaming bubble because the company is not profitable and only has $500 million in revenue. But who cares? Twitter has changed the way we communicate and you could have made a whopping 73 percent if you could have gotten some shares!

Outrage by the investment community quickly ensued about the preferential treatment institutions and wealthy individuals received in the IPO process. Phrases such as "The rich get richer" and "Shut out again" were commonplace. CNBC reported that 50 percent of the Twitter allocation went to only a handful of institutional investors despite thousands clamoring to own.

In this post I'd like to help explain the IPO process and clear up some misunderstandings along the way. To provide some background, I worked on placing over 100 IPOs to institutional shareholders during my 13 years on Wall Street. Most of my deals were international deals, but I was also present for U.S. deals such as Google way back in August 2004. It certainly seems like the good times are back again!

Finance and investing don't have to be complicated. Consistently buying low and selling high can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Of course, if investing were so easy, we would all be kicking back and letting our money work for us instead of slaving away at the office every day.

When I started working on Wall Street in 1999, it felt like I was drinking from a fire hydrant because I was inundated with financial metrics. As a good institutional equities salesman, I should know the latest GDP forecasts to get a grasp of the overall macro momentum of the country. I'd then need to be able to speak eloquently about inflation expectations to differentiate between real and nominal growth. Finally, I'd have to drill down to a stock's specific sales, operating profit, net profit, and margin assumptions to figure out whether the company was a buy or sell.

After a couple years of what felt like groping in the dark, pretending like I knew more than I really did, I finally found one metric that was more powerful than the rest. By studying this one metric thoroughly, I was able to confidently talk to investment professionals 20 years my senior in a reasonably intelligent manner. I dare say that this one simple metric encapsulates almost everything there is to know about finance.